Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  Diamond Ring

SERIES:  Unwritten Rules, Book 3

AUTHOR:  KD Casey

PUBLISHER:  Carina Press

LENGTH: 380 pages

RELEASE DATE:  April 11, 2023

BLURB:

“Diamond Ring might be the best sports romance I have ever read.” —Rachel Reid, USA TODAY bestselling author of Heated Rivalry and The Long Game

“Subtle and spectacular…every page serves up a stunner.” —New York Times Book Review on Fire Season

Teammates reunite to give love another shot in the third installment of KD Casey’s riveting Unwritten Rules series.

Jake Fischer has been here before: pitching for the Oakland Elephants, hiding his worries behind a smile, hoping to win it all. Ten years ago, it didn’t turn out the way he wanted. Nothing in his life did. But now he’s back—and so is the one teammate tied inexorably to his past.

It doesn’t matter how many times catcher Alex Angelides replays that moment during the Fall Classic over in his mind, the outcome never changes. He’s not sure what happened to make that pitch glance off his glove, or what happened with his relationship with Jake—and he’s not going to be the one to ask.

A whole lot may have changed in the last decade, but some things have stayed the same. Jake and Alex still can’t stay out of each other’s faces on the field, or out of each other’s beds off of it. They’ve got a second chance to win it all…but only if they realize what they lost.    

Unwritten Rules

Book 1: Unwritten Rules

Book 2: Fire Season

Book 3: Diamond Ring

REVIEW:

“Alex loves me, and I love him.”

If only love were just that simple. That easy. Like pitching and catching. Catch and release. In Diamond Ring, the culminating book in K.D. Casey’s Unwritten Rules sports romance series, Casey certainly makes it feel that way, with her masterful writing and effortless storytelling of a deceptively straightforward love story.  But don’t be fooled.  Diamond Ring digs deep into the hearts and minds of up-and-coming MLB pitcher Jake Fischer and MLB catcher Alex Angelides, to tell the story of these two best friends and teammates falling in love and then falling apart.

If you enjoy the second chance romance trope, Diamond Ring delivers everything you want, crave even, but in a wholly unexpected, devastatingly beautiful way.  Casey tells us about baseball, about falling in love as a non-straight man in a traditionally homophobic sport, and in the most forbidden way – with a teammate.  She tells it from the inside.  Not the inside scoop.  Inside.  In their heads, hearts, bodies, and souls. The story lives within Jake and Alex, and Casey doesn’t glorify or create melodrama. She’s subtle, exquisitely careful, and thoughtful. We get clever turns of phrase and seemingly straightforward storytelling that is anything but. Casey’s the pied piper, and we go where she takes us, leaving the breadcrumbs for us to follow, but leaving our minds to fill in the gaps and draw its own conclusions.

Sports romances typically turn on secret relationships and coming out.  While that’s an aspect of Diamond Ring, it’s secondary to the real story: two broken men hoping for another chance at glory after fate cruelly snatched it away.  Jake and Alex, a pitcher and catcher in love, are successful as a couple because they know each other and understand each other.  And yet their scars breed insecurities. Their excellent communication skills and ability to intuit the other’s thoughts and feelings make them strong as a pair on the baseball diamond, but those skills break down on a personal level under the strain of grief.  

A decade of separation due to stubbornness. A misunderstanding neither is willing to acknowledge or forgive.  We feel the pain of their separation as acutely as they do.  But Casey hits us where it hurts most with her portrayal of Jake. It’s a careful, considered picture of a star in the making cruelly sidelined by injury.  It turns hope and promise into disappointment and frustration – a feeling of failure that compounds Jake’s mental challenges. Jake constant battles to not to give in, to push through the feeling of imminent doom constantly buzzing in his head – the voice that says he is one pitch, one breath, one mistake from having it all taken away again.

In Diamond Ring, Casey gives a master class in writing with Jake and Alex’s complicated, multi-layered love story.  It kept my rapt attention and left me with an awful book hangover – strong feelings that ironically stem from a nuanced, understated story, but that’s because Casey packs it with tons of meaning and emotion.

Casey’s baseball knowledge is evident in every word of Diamond Ring.  The story is rich in detail, both factual and emotional.  Jake and Alex’s entire journey is metaphorically tied to that eponymous diamond. It’s as messy as the dirt on the pitcher’s mound and as impactful as Jake’s fastball in his heyday.  Yet Casey never makes you feel like you’re reading sports.  Rather, you’re reading about love in the real world, full of real challenges and real setbacks, but also with real rewards that ultimately support Jake and Alex as real partners on and off the field.

Diamond Ring is everything you didn’t know you needed in a sports romance.  It’s brilliant, unique, captivating, and unforgettable – shining like a precious gem, as rare as the sublime writing within its covers, and as coveted as the love Jake and Alex share.  Diamond Ring is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and one of the best sports romances I’ve ever read.  You don’t need to have read the previous books in this series to enjoy this exceptional sports romance, although I highly encourage you to also read one of my best of 2022 books, the second series book, Fire Season. 

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon